Page 336 - Reason To Sing by Kelita Haverland

Reason To Sing

A mother’s love and support during the most heartbreaking time
of my life was what I needed most.
But I also grew to understand what my mother braved. To
this day I hold great empathy for her. I can’t even begin to imagine
the gut-wrenching experience of losing two husbands to suicide,
much less the agonizing years leading up to their tragic deaths.
The shame would have been crippling. And then to endure the
aftermath of rejection, humiliation and even hatred from certain
family members? It must have been an excruciating experience
and one she tried desperately to hide from my siblings and me.
I now can understand her anguish at leaving her children
behind. She must have believed she was doing the right thing
having Mike adopt Vian and me. If she had any misgivings, she
never breathed a word to anyone.
And then, that final battle she faced alone against her own
body. And time. I honestly don’t know how she did it.
I do know my mother passed down her tenacity and inner
strength to me. She was always the strong one. I also know that,
as grateful as I am for those gifts, they did not come without a
price. It was she who instinctively taught me how to hide behind
masks. I learned from the best. Even with her own deep longings,
she never ever allowed herself the luxury of vulnerability. She
couldn’t. She needed to survive.
I now believe that, in the end, her secrets found a way out
of their dark hiding place in the form of a disease; an insidious
illness that we now understand can be greatly exacerbated by
trauma and stress.
When Keldon was born, I was adamant about raising him in
a healthy environment. I have worked hard to give him a home
with stability and love. One where secrets were never given a
chance to take root and flourish. My own family was proof that
secrets can be deadly.

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